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Bombay High court looking for new address in town

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The over 150-year-old Bombay high court, located in Fort area, is scouting for a new address in Mumbai. Why? Because the present Grade-I heritage structure is not able to accommodate the tremendous increase in litigants, and strength of judges and advocates due to paucity of space.

The HC building was constructed in 1878, essentially to meet the requirements of 15 judges. However, over the last 135 years, the strength of judges has been increased from 60 to 75 in 2007, and soon it will be 94. The HC registry was recently offered a plot in Wadala, but it has been found to be unsuitable/inadequate for accommodating the HC complex.

Advocate Ahmed Abdi has filed a public interest litigation, seeking directions to the government to allot land in Bandra-Kurla Complex. It prays for appointment of a high-powered committee to decide on a suitable location at the earliest.

Abdi said, "The HC building is 150 years old, and due to the increase in litigation, there is a huge space crunch. Advocates don't have proper offices, litigants waiting for their cases to come up for hearing don't have space to sit. There is also the problem of storage of court records. Due to increase in load on the structure, there are possibilities that some untoward incident may occur."

Former chief minister of Maharashtra Prithviraj Chavan had committed to chief justice Mohit Shah in a meeting on July 1 that, as a lot needs to be done in terms of providing infrastructure, his government will do its best to give adequate financial support, and HC's proposals will be given utmost priority. However, the steps of providing space at the Central Telegraph Office and MTNL office, which is adjoining the high court building, are temporary in nature.

Advocate general Darius Khambata recently suggested whether the HC Annexe, constructed in 1950, can be demolished and a new high-rise can be constructed. The suggestion has been placed before the HC administration for consideration. The HC too has called for suggestions from the Bar associations on whether they should move out of their present location.

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